One Dark Night

…Covered with Love ©

I really thought I had everything under control. I was sure that I had the wheels straight. And I was backing up slowly-very slowly. The driveway was long, and lined on each side with beautiful, evenly spaced large trees. The season was summer. The night was starless. The continual sheets of pouring rain permitted nary a shadow.

I was sixteen with a barely-two-week old driver's license. My parents were in Israel and I was staying with a pastor and his family in a rural town about two hours from home. We had all gone over to one of the deacon's house for dinner except for Doug, the pastor's son. He was at the ball field, just a mile or so away, when the rain started.

Pastor A. tossed me his keys as we were seated in the living room. Laughingly, he said that he didn't want to go out in the rain, and asked if I would take the wagon and run to the ball field to pick up Doug.

Excited to practice driving, but a little nervous about my ‘skills-minus-experience', I grabbed my jacket and headed out the door. There is one thing you must understand: I was a shy, quiet, sixteen year old. The daughter of a pastor/Greek and Hebrew professor, known only as ‘Miss Holier than Thou' or ‘Miss Goody Two Shoes' to the graduating class of my high school. I was the first person to graduate a year early in my school, and study and grades had consumed me.

There probably wasn't a bone defined as ‘reckless' in my entire body. I knew nothing about looking for ‘thrills' or ‘living on the edge'. I am absolutely sure that as I backed slowly out of the driveway that raining night, I considered it more of a responsibility or a thing of service and obedience…right up to the second that I backed the new station wagon bumper dead center into a large, immovable tree trunk.

I froze! What should I do? I was sitting just a few feet from the end of the drive way. If I went back now, I'd have to back out again, or admit I could not do it, and send Pastor A. I pulled slightly ahead, righted my angle, and finished backing out onto the dirt road. I drove straight to the grocery store, next to the ball park. I parked under the lights and got out to check the damage.

Under the lights, and through the sheets of rain, I thought there was a small crease, but it didn't seem to be more than a shopping cart might do, so I hurried on to pick up Doug. We returned for dinner and I managed to completely bury my secret evening episode under laughter, fellowship and food.

The next morning, from my bedroom, I could hear Pastor and Mrs. Pastor discussing where that dent in the back of the wagon may have come from. I went to breakfast and said nothing of the prior evening's episode.

Over the next few weeks of my stay, I heard the topic come up three or four times. I worked at avoiding being in the room when it surfaced. Miss Goody Two Shoes had lost the ‘goody' and had quickly become just Miss Two Shoes …ever sidestepping to stay out of the conversation. The more days passed, the deeper my secret seemed to worm itself. Shame came to play and it seemed harder and harder to think of sharing that evening episode with anyone…especially them!

The subject was finally dropped and the summer went on. We took a few family day trips in the wagon, but I never offered to drive, and was never asked again.

Summer passed. I returned home. Over the next few years, I went to Bible college, got married, and had a baby. My husband became the assistant pastor of a small church in New York state, and we had our second child. In all that time, the ugly little lie stayed neatly nestled somewhere deep inside of me.

The mid 70's found us moving our little family to the mountains of Pennsylvania to take our first full time pastorate. I'm not sure if it was sleeping in the tiny parsonage connected to the church, being that close to the altar 24/7, or the fact that I was now THE pastor's wife, but that evening episode of so many years before seemed to pop up in my mind several times a day. Later I would learn to recognize it as the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.

By the 2nd week in our little parsonage home, I sat down and wrote a long overdue letter to Pastor A. I confessed ‘my secret evening episode' of so many years ago, and my sin of hiding this ugly lie. I asked for his forgiveness. I knew that if God was going to use me for His glory…it must come from a pure heart.

Within just a few weeks, the mailman delivered a handwritten letter with a Michigan return address. It was from Pastor A! I eagerly began to read. He was so happy to hear from me after all those years. He shared how each of his sons had grown, married, and moved on. He shared how his wife had died after brain cancer the year before. He was no longer pastoring, but had settled near his children and grandchildren. He went on to say that “of course I was forgiven”. He assured me that accidents happen, and that I was where I was supposed to be, and doing what I was supposed to be doing. And then He shared just a couple of lines that have forever changed my life.

“Susie, we always knew it was you who put the dent in

the wagon. Our only regret was that you didn't trust our

love enough to tell us about it.”   

Cleansing tears flowed in that little parsonage that day. There was no ugly ‘secret evening episode' buried in my heart anymore. But those two sentences have become two strong railroad ties that have embedded and formed a path, a road of truth forever in my life, for me to follow.

On one side, I am guarded by the fact that He, my heavenly Father knows everything…and has always known. I need to keep no dark ugly secrets. And on the other side, I know that I can trust His love! With anything!

Amazing love, how can it be? His love has no limit, His grace has no measure! What love! What boundless love! A love you can trust! There is nothing hidden, that when brought to His light, cannot be forgiven in His marvelous love!

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins, by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” Rev. 1:5-6   

Susan Chapman Brown

Arising to Excellence Ministries

www.Arisingtoexcellence.org

www.susan@arisingtoexcellence.org